


chaos is a ladder

by holy_roller_novocaine



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Eldritch, Female Uzumaki Naruto, Fuuinjutsu, Gen, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24924130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holy_roller_novocaine/pseuds/holy_roller_novocaine
Summary: She's quite certain she's gone mad, but certain sacrifices can be made to save her precious people.
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 9
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm, looks like a rewrite.

Ghost of an uncertain future:

The end is nigh.

The cycle of shinobi has reached its end.

The realms are fracturing, the paths to the nadir are yawning open, another dead civilization, another dead world.

The weapon of destruction obscures the sky, shadowing the decayed earth below, a behemoth on the horizon. 

A mockery of what once flourished in its surroundings, the god tree.

And from its shadow she appears.

She looks up and smiles grimly. The limbs sway, branches ominously creak, the cocooned corpses of her comrades swing to and fro in the wind harkening the end days.

She studies this mass grave for a moment, gives a decisive nod, and then treks back into the tree's shadow.

…..

The world is a beast of a burden, but it’s a weight that Naruto has carried all her life without regret.

And yet more than anything than this moment she feels weary and hammered down.

This is the last resort.

The end is nigh, the world she once carried now has the lingering stench of decay, ash falls freely in a mockery of light rain, and the earth cracks with a thirst for sun and water. The only sound is the howling wind as she steps on this dry earth steadily making her way to what once represented the pinnacle of shinobi civilization. There are not even ruins to allude to once stood here, what it represented, the will of the people who built it, nor those who inhabited it and carried on the will of fire.

But there yonder.

Yonder is the rocky precipice, the mountain that proudly boasted the faces of the fire shadows that led the Village Hidden in The Leaves. Now beyond there lies nothing, the mountain is gone, gone, gone.

Naruto comes to stand before it, and then looks around her.

Uchiha Madara has finally made the world in his image.

And Naruto will undo all his hard work.

She queries the leviathan that lurks in the ether of her mind. ‘Kurama, will this work?’

Kurama ruminates on giving her the response he’s given her for every time she voiced this question. To Kurama it matters not, he was there at the beginning, he will be there at the end. He is primordial, he is eternal, and at the root of his being that has grown apathetic with the passage of time, but something stirs, for Naruto is different. In every cycle of humanity, he meets an extraordinary human, but Naruto’s shadow encompasses them all.

_**‘Yes.'**_ The voice echoes, carrying with it the impression of infernal engines, of a song that humanity must never hear. Naruto inhales sharply even as her ears begin to bleed. She wipes the ichor away easily, and wily fox grins with a thousand teeth at her reaction. She’d been bracing herself for a negative response, but this will work, Kurama will make it so. The rules that once tethered him to this cycle, marking him as a puppet of fate have been ripped asunder. As a fail safe he will use those seldom used powers that would drive humanity to insanity, should her seal not succeed.

Just a touch, and perhaps Naruto will come away from this unscathed. She has already been exposed to the nadir more than any human has the right, and the taint from the dark below appears in the manic gleam in her eyes, spelling some form of madness.

Naruto nods and straightens, she bites her thumb and runs the bloodied appendage down her arm. Ink appears in intricate matrices, arcane symbols of languages of long dead civilizations dance across her skin before coalescing at her feet and spreading into a seal. Naruto proceeds to draw on chakra that would require a platoon of jonin, and with it comes Kurama’s ancient essence, triggering the seal.

There’s a pulse, it rapidly increases in pitch and ripples as the plane of existence writhes in resistance as a rip in the very fabric of the space time continuum yawns open. From the opening shadows spill forth in glittering clouds of dust and a viscous liquid where creatures take shape from it, sprouting appendages and beady red eyes that watch her with apathy.

Naruto side steps these skittering beasts, heading for the gateway, and does not hesitate to step through.

The end is nigh, but Naruto shall save them all.


	2. Chapter 2

With a shock she awakens. However, there’s an evil moment, where her vision blurs, the shadows seem to lengthen, and black spots appear. But then she blinks and takes in the wooden ceiling with wide eyes, clutching her bed sheets with white knuckles. Sweat beads at her brow, and blonde hair lays matted to her forehead and neck. She strips the sheets away and stumbles to the restroom. The light flickers on, she looks at the step stool, and feels hysteria bubbling forth. Trembling legs carry her upward, she takes one look in the mirror, and stares hard.

Kurama makes a noise of interest, ‘It worked after all, and you weren’t driven insane.’

Naruto finally gives into the hysteria, laughing so hard that she clutches the edge of the sink, and then falls onto the tile floors in tears. “Holy fucking shit! It worked!”

 **‘Much,’** Kurama notes wryly. She laughs and laughs and laughs. She laughs so hard, she begins to heave for breath and finds her lungs constricted.

**'Breathe.'**

The panic sets in.

 **'Breathe!'** Kurama commands.

Black spots appear in her vision, she struggles harder.

 ** _'Breathe damn you!'_ **He roars, and a surge of chakra jolts through her. Naruto gulps in breaths and then sits still and waits and counts. When the madness has abated, the first thing she does is pulls herself to her feet. On trembling legs, she makes her way to the calendar. She tilts her head curiously.

This is quite unexpected... but workable, definitely workable. There on the calendar are black "x's" leading steadily up to a date circled in red. She is three days short of starting the academy. It appears months of careful planning shan't be for naught. What's past is prologue; she has ripped asunder the past to forge the future anew.

The second thing she does is grab a pillow, open her window to climb to the rooftop. Struggling with the child's body she now occupies, she mourns the loss of yester years graceful movements and chakra control, and she does not look forward to the arduous task of getting them back.

Naruto sits, clutches her pillow and stares, but most of all reaches out her senses and listens.

Konoha never sleeps, from the rooftops filled with shinobi foot traffic, to the districts that remain restless even in twilight.

Never has she heard nor seen a more beautiful. Naruto has seen the birth of a star, heard the tales of creatures from bygone eras, but nothing compares to a thriving Hidden Leaf.

For months she survived and planned with an increasingly ambivalent chakra monster that sensed the inevitable end of the ninja world, and sought to escape a dying world. Who only deigned to entertain her notions of saving a ghost of an uncertain future when she hesitantly asked about his eldritch origins, and to act as a guide when she gathered the courage to explore the dark below.

Between being trapped in a hellish wasteland, haunted by memories and ghosts, and exploring the nadir where she was traumatized by sights and sounds not meant for mortals. More times than not Naruto felt her sanity was slipping.

She slumbered shallowly with one eye open, waiting for Uchiha Madara to strike. Waiting on that last confrontation, to use a seal to detonate, taking her, him, the world, and going supernova with it.

Never again.

As she feels familiar chakra signatures that had been lost to her, her resolve strengthens. She'll save them all even if it kills her. On the rooftop she remains until morning dawns.


	3. Chapter 3

Let it not be said that Naruto does not play the long game.

Perhaps once long term thinking, regarding possible turns and twists in plots, manipulating outcomes in her favor were beyond her comprehension. Short term, instinctual responses had been her forte. And while this remains a strength, she has learned to hone herself. With every change she makes there will be a ripple effect, therefore contingencies and concessions have been added to her plans. 

Kage bunshin and fuinjutsu will both play incremental roles. From using seals to augment herself while she retrains her child's body to its former glory. To using kage bunshin to expedite her chakra control, gain knowledge she seldom cared to explore before, and eventually be her eyes and ears on multiple ventures. 

But first she has a narrative to build, and the foundation starts with an education.

Personally, attending the Academy does not register in her plans, she has things to do, hell to raise, and chaos to court. A kage bunshin would suffice in her stead, but for the first three months Naruto will attend and experience nostalgia. Revel in the innocence of halcyon days of attending an institution that taught future soldiers/assassins the art of killing, espionage, and teamwork to decimate enemies. And since she starts her shinobi schooling two years before her former cohort, she won't see vivid illusions of their death throes overlaying the familiar faces of her precious people. She sees that enough in her dreams, where more times than not she awakens screaming.

Naruto will give herself one to two years in the academy and then begin to climb the ranks, it'd be novel to actually gain a chunin vest and finally shed the title of eternal genin.

Since she is on 24-hour watch by the Hokage's elite guard, there are appearances she has to make. She can't go from potential village idiot to prodigy. 

(Naruto was never considered a bright child, but stupid she was not. The teachers of the academy did not make an effort to teach her, nor connect with her learning style. Even Iruka-sensei struggled to reach her, but with a class to teach, one on one time was not merited. Her time with Ero-senin showed her that simply telling her, reading from text, or showing was not enough. She had to do the task herself, and Jiriaya-sensei seemed to know she was a kinesthetic learner without ascribing to any other method. She supposed she took after her father in that regard.)

In the first few weeks of starting the academy Naruto uses a kinesthetic approach to learning, she adapts the lessons the instructors impart in a way she can comprehend, and picks up a skill or two. One being the subtle lessons of botany. Naruto has a green thumb, most of which she learned through trail and error. The plants the academy teaches them to identify have healing properties, are poisonous, have sedative effects, et cetera. Naruto makes a note of them, to see what can be bought in the local bazaar or in a Nara speciality store, the prices, supplies and how they can factor into her monthly stipend.

A boon to attending the shinobi academy is limited access to Konoha's ninja library. She get's a library card from a surprisingly indifferent chunin, and begins a routine of self study. Naruto spends two to three hours a day reading scrolls and books on ninjutsu, taijutsu and the like. It is a lesson in self discipline to stay still, read the information before her, and take notes to later attempt the information imparted to her. Fuinjutsu seems to be the only subject that is an exception to her wayward attention. As an obscure art, the books are rare, and those in the library are forbidden from leaving the premises. So, she reads them hungrily, and takes studious notes.

Naruto didn't have much of a formal education on seals, so the few books on sealing are enlightening and puts terms to things she has learned through trail and error. Fuinjutsu comes easy to her, once the basics are down, the sky's the limit as long creativity and limitless imagination is at her finger tips.

She ruminates that the boundless possibilities of fuinjutsu, and the fearless way the Uzumaki utilized seals and hoarded their knowledge of them signed their death warrants.

She thinks of the knowledge Kurama relayed to her, the glimpses and brief study of arcane symbols, languages of civilizations and planets long dead. Of times waking up from a trance, bleeding from her eyes and ears to find that she has written in these dead languages with her very viscera. Of how those very arcane symbols of dead and dying planets made up the seal that ripped a hole in the very fabric of reality. Of how her mind thinks of the experimental seals she has created and potential seals to come that will use that knowledge, seals that have not been seen since the likes of her ancestors.

Morbidly she wonders if she's signing her own death warrant.

That thought is sobering enough.

Anyhow she has a narrative to build.

She doesn't demonstrate a sudden proficiency in advanced shinobi skills, nor knowledge in ninja knowledge beyond a clanless orphan. But she does excel in every lesson, exerting effortless brilliance even if she spends most of her time in class with her face shoved in a book, or working on a seal. As Uzumaki her interest in fuinjutsu won't be seen as suspect, but rather a boon, a future skill to be added to Konoha's vast arsenal.

In the library, in class, or at home she works on a portfolio of seals; experimental seals, seals that invoke the nadir, seals she's perfected, and the common shinobi seals that she has augmented.

One of her experimental seals encompasses the whole of her body in simple matrices that are written in small symbols that invoke all forms of chakra, death, life and a symbol that shows five rings of eyes surrounding an orb, placed over a ten pointed star. This seal would control the output of her chakra, Kurama’s chakra and the abysmal power that now lurks within her.

Naruto has a theory regarding how to she can expand upon this seal and use it to transform her current seal without needing the Hakke no Fūin Shiki key. Certain factors will impede further assimilating Kurama's chakra with her own. She has questions regarding this and Kurama should have the answers.

\---

It's at the two month mark at the academy that she's approached. At the moment she has choosen to spend recess in the classroom to work on a new seal that manipulates gravity. She's notices her class instructor advancing towards her. In her short time at the Academy, not once has she been singled out, but she has a feeling that this a moment of reckoning.

"Uzumaki," The instructor states without preamble, "Demonstrate the henge no jutsu."

Naruto executes the jutsu, flawlessly turning into the Sandaime.

"Demonstrate the bunshin no jutsu."

"Fuin." Symbols briefly glow, and with this Naruto uses a seal to funnel her chakra from a raging river to water running through a spigot. Twenty bunshin appear, but two of them look sickly. Damn.

The instructor raises a brow at this and Naruto rubs her head sheepishly, "I have too much chakra, the seal helps channel it."

The instructor seems to stiffen at that statement, no doubt remembering the source of her chakra.

The instructor gathers himself and barks, "Kawarimi no jutsu."

She does this without a qualm.

The instructor grunts, "It has been decided that you will leave your cohort and join the year three class."

Naruto grins.


	4. Chapter 4

Naruto takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly. 

She dives into the ether of her mind. 

Naruto reaches out for Kurama's familiar presence and finds only echoes. She focuses on the strongest echoes, and searches for the connection between, a single thin thread that stretches precariously in the balance. 

With that fragile connection established, she takes up the arduous task of honing in on his presence; the inferno of chakra and thrum of otherness. 

Gone are the pipes, the stagnant water, the dreary lighting that once made up the surroundings of her mind scape. Now stands vegetation in vain of Konoha's giant trees bequeathed by the Shodai, trees that eclipse the sky, hiding the alien flora that grows beneath. The landscape of her mind is a vast and ever changing maze. Grey and subdued, above the sky shifts reflecting her moods. 

Through throngs of trees covered in strangler figs, fields of flowers covered in poisonous plants, pastures of vegetation that smell of rotting flesh, and over hills covered in psychedelic flora. It is on a series of hills that she finds Kurama, form alarmingly still, in a stasis. 

Well isn't that a curious state of affairs. 

The motionless is not novel, rather it's the size of Kurama that catches her off guard. At his zenith, when he possessed both his yin and yang, his overall mass was a sight beyond compare. Now he is now a colossus of an entity, resembling the abysmal creatures that lurk in the depths of the nadir. While he still retains the form of a chakra construct, the otherness that clings to him cannot be denied. 

"Whelp, that's interesting, what brought on this change?" Naruto queries, her expression vulpine. 

Eyes closed, he does not move, he remains a statue, and the voice that speaks resonates from all directions, echoing with the song that humanity must never hear. 

**"The ties that bind me are snapping. Only a few anchors hold me to this cycle, one of which is you."**

With each word he speaks, ichor slowly inched from her ears. Naruto blinks owlishly at that ominous statement. She tilts her head left and and then right, wiping up the blood before it can take shape, gain sentience and attempt to murder her. 

Slowly she states, "You said you were bound by rules, that your actions were limited to whatever role you had to play in every cycle." 

**"That was before, this is now."** Kurama supplies helpfully. 

"So this one of results, besides helping to power my space time continuum seal." Naruto squints at him, "What else is there?" 

Amusement tinges his echoing voice, **"Much more."**

She gives him a gimlet eye, "What did you do!?" 

**"A boon; you will need every advantage at your behest. In your hands you shall create and destroy."**

Naruto stares at Kurama's motionless form incredulously, "Yin and yang chakra!?" 

Kurama opens his eyes and something prmidorial shifts. She catches a very brief glimpse of the being that creatures of the dark below fear, an entity that even the eternal sleeping singers revere. Naruto feels her mind attempt to comprehend the sight and fights the urge to claw out her eyes when she fails to register what she is seing. Blood vessels have burst in her eyes, the irritation stings; she wipes away bloody tears. 

"So much more, you shall see." 

Naruto passes out with those final words. 

* * *

When she awakens, she's not quite sure how much time has passed. But she has learned that time is a construct that is manipulated depending on the dimension. 

How curious. 

Kurama is mercurial, prone to ambiguous statements and wiley moments, but he is a fountain of information.

While she did not get to directly ask about her experimental seal that can possibly replace the Hakke no Fūin Shiki, _nay_ transform it. The revelation that she may be able to directly manipulate yin and yang chakra opens many possibilities. 

Naruto looks at the palms of her hands and expects to see the symbols of yin and yang release. However there nothing but the developing calluses on youthful skin.

She highly doubts the Kurama's boon is simply yin and yang chakra. 

And she absently worries that her simple labeling of these new dimensions of her repertoire is to pacify the part of her that stubbornly clings to her humanity, despite the horrid trauma she inflicts upon it. 

_ The power to create and destroy… _ a blessing from a primordial eldritch entity.

This calls for further experimentation. 

Experimentations that require potential destruction on a mass scale. 

Since she is under constant surveillance by ANBU, and secret government factions infiltrating ANBU. This calls for an illusion. 

A genjutsu, a seal. 

Her mind begins to race.

She thinks she'll make a pocket dimension.


End file.
